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Saturday, January 23, 2016

KIDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD FIND COMMUNITY, LEARN ENGLISH THROUGH POETRY

Students in the English Language Development class at John Muir Middle School rehearse for a poetry performance. Priska Neely

January 22, 05:00 AM :: Under the bright lights of the auditorium of John
Muir Middle School, dozens of students are on stage rehearsing for a big
poetry performance.

Standing in a row with her classmates, Jwail Alnamh, a Syrian
immigrant, recites her line: "I remember home when my country was all
good and my grandma could take me everywhere."
"I dream about seeing my friends once again and jumping rope and laughing," said Fima Kaoumi, who is also from Syria.

These students are 48 of the students enrolled in English Language
Development classes at the Burbank middle school. Like many recent
immigrants, they're slowly mastering a language they didn't grow up
speaking. To help them cope -- linguistically and emotionally --
teachers have designed a unit that uses poetry and performance to help
English learners improve their language skills.

Teaching artist Kate Randolph works in schools all around Los Angeles County. Priska Neely
For years now, teaching artist Kate Randolph has come the school to
work with students on different theater techniques -- articulation,
projection, body movement. Usually her class culminates with a
performance of classic poetry, but this year she’s trying something
different.

"We’ve always based it on Langston Hughes poems about dreams, which
is great," Randolph said. "But I thought, you know, you have such a
tapestry of countries and ethnicities, why don’t we expand it?"

So this year, the students wrote their own poems, all based around on
the theme "homeland." Along with lines from published works, the
students will perform their poems at a school assembly on Friday.

'A SENSE OF BELONGING'

About 7 percent of the roughly 1,400 students at Muir are not native
English speakers. Teacher Jessica Wertlieb says the English learners are
a really diverse group from a dozen countries, including Armenia,
Syria, Russia and Mexico.

She combines her class of intermediate and advanced English learners
with the class of teacher James Koontz, who teaches beginners. Even
though students are from all over the world, Wertlieb says they’re
forging a little community.

"It’s hard for them to fit in when they come to this school," she
said, "and so I think this really gives them an opportunity to feel a
sense of belonging."

In his poem, seventh-grader Alexandr Ter-Zakaryan wrote that he
dreams of one day being president of Armenia. Most of the English
learners at the school are Armenian. Burbank has one of the largest
Armenian communities in the U.S.

Alexandr arrived here five months ago and he’s still searching for that sense of belonging.
"It’s very hard because some people don’t understand you. Sometimes
when teachers say something it’s like, 'What?' " he said sighing
heavily.

He said the transition has been stressful, but the theater class is
helping him practice his words and understand his classmates.

"If they’re not engaged in oral language and they’re silent in the classroom, they don’t have that foundation for literacy."

Brouillette says incorporating drama also can put students in a mental and emotional space where it’s easier to learn.

"Because the arts aren’t usually graded in the same way, they feel
less self-conscious and that’s actually when you remember the best."

She says this is especially true in middle school where students are maybe more self-conscious than ever.

At Muir, Randolph does 10 sessions with the students, teaching them
what it takes to be a performer -- how to stand, project, articulate.
Teachers keep her coming back each year with grants from the education
foundation Burbank Arts for All.

During rehearsal she yelled out a mantra the children know very well.
"Remember it’s your job to be heard, understood, and felt, OK?"

She encouraged the students to show emotion in their performance and
their writing. Eighth grader Meray Mahfoud took that advice to heart.

Meray Mahfoud (foreground) came to the U.S. from Syria three years ago. Priska Neely
"When I was writing I was, like, it was so sad," said Meray, who left
Syria three years ago to escape the war. "I want to go back to my
country but it’s really hard and difficult and everything’s messed up
there and I miss my grandmom."

She channeled those very real feelings into her poem.

"I remember home," she recited during rehearsal, "when I see the
cookies in the market that my grandmother used to make. I feel her and
how she wants me to go back to Syria."

This is Meray's third year working with Randolph. Her teachers say
she's blossomed and gained confidence. She says making an emotional
connection has really helped her learn English.
"When you don’t understand the word and then they explain it to you
and you do it emotionally, it helps you to understand the word," she
said.

The teachers say putting poetry into performance serves a dual
purpose -- it helps with the practical stuff – vocabulary and
presentation skills. And writing about personal experience has made
students value the art of poetry.

"I think it woke up in them, 'Oh that’s how poetry gets born,'" said
Randolph. "It’s really real; it’s not just that corny stuff that we have
to memorize and recite sometimes."